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How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

economist.com

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Re: How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

#2
How does this work? How would you even trust China to not just throw you in jail? I guess the US government figured it out because he went to China and then came back and they’re like oh yeah that makes no fucking sense

Or for the conspiracy minded, they ‘let him’ escape to Taiwan and told him to go set up a pro democracy org in the states and this aling parents thing is all just cover

Re: How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

#4
Soon enough anything that is even remotely a security threat (pretty much any non-trivial app) will require clearance and in office work.

The North Korean hacks into several companies are an example of how bad it is now, add in some good deep fake technology and soon you will not be able to distinguish who is actually working for your company.

Re: How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

#5
post #3

There should be a substantial CIA effort to recruit at every US university with more than 2 Chinese nationals. Student loans forgiven and green cards for the family.

The idea is good, but will probably only really work for students with weak family ties back to the PRC, which will be pretty rare. For those with loved ones in the PRC, there is ample documentation that the CCP will threaten their families to get them to come back (one of the techniques used in Operation Fox Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt). Arranging for a "family vacation" to the US that turns into permanent residence will only work a few times before the CCP catches on.

Re: How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

#6
post #3

There should be a substantial CIA effort to recruit at every US university with more than 2 Chinese nationals. Student loans forgiven and green cards for the family.

Chinese nationals who come to the US are often rich enough to not have any student debt.

Re: How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

#7
post #4

Soon enough anything that is even remotely a security threat (pretty much any non-trivial app) will require clearance and in office work. The North Korean hacks into several companies are an example of how bad it is now, add in some good deep fake technology and soon you will not be able to distinguish who is actually working for your company.

> Soon enough anything that is even remotely a security threat [...] will require clearance and in office work.

I think this is one of those things that sucks but may be necessary.

You need to trust the knowledge workers that make up your economy to not send your research to a hostile nation so they can take advantage of your R&D investments.

And you need to know that your critical infrastructure (beyond Internet and trains, think about electricity and running water) isn't vulnerable to being slowly pwned and then shut down all at once in a catastrophic event that coincides with a forcible military reunification of one Asian country with another.

Although the latter problem is less malice and more general incompetence in the cyber security realm. Can't solve that with a security clearance or RTO. Solar Winds anyone?

Re: How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

#8
post #4

Soon enough anything that is even remotely a security threat (pretty much any non-trivial app) will require clearance and in office work. The North Korean hacks into several companies are an example of how bad it is now, add in some good deep fake technology and soon you will not be able to distinguish who is actually working for your company.

...some ultra-short story fragment about AI & trust protocols so hoovering up all the resources that Usenet & text-only email make a comeback, as nothing more sophisticated functions any longer.
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